On Monday, Ducks head coach Bruce Boudreau (back center) will face the Washington Capitals for the first time since the Capitals fired him on Nov. 28, 2011. MICHAEL GOULDING, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The day Bruce Boudreau has waited months, perhaps even years, for is finally upon him. And the question he has long known he would one day answer is naturally being asked.

Oh, what must it feel like to face your old team? The one that canned you in the city you never wanted to leave where the locals who once couldn’t bother to care grew to care so much when you couldn’t bring them a Stanley Cup.

“Who do we play?” Boudreau said, giving his questioner a serious look. “It’s just another game.”

Maintaining that look quickly proved futile.

“I can’t even say that with a straight face,” he said, breaking into a smile.

Mr. Boudreau goes back to Washington is finally playing out. The 58-year-old coach of the Anaheim Ducks was back at his previous address, Verizon Center, for a short spell on a quiet and unseasonably warm Sunday before venturing out into the city.

A promise of taking his coaches to his favorite dining spot had to be kept. And if not for the task of coaching his Ducks against the Capitals on Monday night, perhaps Boudreau could have found time for all those who’ve awaited his return.

“I had all these people that wanted me to go to dinner,” Boudreau said. “Friends of mine. Got a call from a guy who asked me if I wanted to go to Congressional and golf on Sunday. He said it’s supposed to be 72. I said, ‘You know I can’t golf during the season.’

“I know an awful lot of people have texted me, saying I’ll see you there and see you after the game and see if you can go out. I said, ‘You’re not gonna.’ But I always say, ‘Come down and I’ll see you in warmup.’ So we’ll see if anybody comes down.”

This is still a business trip for Boudreau, but it is much more that. His firing by the Capitals on Nov. 28, 2011, opened an opportunity in Anaheim to display again the turnaround artist he has become.

The Ducks were a rudderless, confidence-shaken outfit when Boudreau took over. Now they’re fueled by an early playoff exit in May, bring in an eight-game winning streak that’s a franchise best and an NHL-high 57 points that reflect their 26-7-5 record.

“I’m not surprised at all that he jumped right back in,” said George McPhee, the Capitals’ longtime general manager. “He loved coaching in the NHL. He was very good at it. There was an opportunity to coach an NHL team and in this business you go where the work is.

“I’m not surprised at all about his success right now. It’s a very good team. Terrific personnel. And he’s the right guy to be coaching that team.”

McPhee always felt Boudreau had a good feel for the game. It is why he gave him his first shot as an NHL coach, bringing up the Calder Cup-winning Hershey Bears bench boss to replace Glen Hanlon.

“He had a lot of good ideas in place in his mind before he even got here,” McPhee said.

Boudreau’s often-chronicled work in Washington bears repeating. His arc over four-plus seasons includes turning an ignored franchise that couldn’t come close to selling out games to an annual playoff participant that filled Verizon Center with red-clad fans.

Having a megawatt superstar such as Alex Ovechkin made the Capitals an attraction, but Boudreau also turned loose Ovechkin and the many youngsters he coached and developed in Hershey with an exciting, fast-break style of hockey.

Even though the Capitals have been in his rearview mirror for two years, Boudreau keeps close tabs and regularly watches their games.

“We went from averaging 6,500 to sold out,” Boudreau said. “And I thought that was a really cool thing. They were a cool team back then. They had what they called the young guns. And we had a lot of celebrations after the goals. It was a great experience.”

The players are the stars, but Boudreau enjoyed his own slice of popularity. He willingly did commercials. He regularly poked fun at himself. He was fiery and demonstrative. And he talked to anyone and, at times, everyone.

In other words, he was very much his “Gabby” nickname. And Capitals fans ate up an everyman who looked more like a bank manager or school principal.

“I think I was different than what they had in recent years,” Boudreau said. “I was more forthright. If you want to talk, let’s talk. You didn’t get the same answers all the time. On the bench, I thought I showed my emotions fairly often.

“I don’t know. Maybe they just liked chubby little bald guys.”

The flip side of turning Washington into a Cup contender is the Capitals never got close. Boudreau never got beyond the second round and still hasn’t. And then the pink slip came when Washington stumbled after a 7-0 start to the 2011-12 season.

Looking back, Boudreau thinks things might have been different if Tampa Bay hadn’t swept his team in the 2011 Eastern Conference semifinals.

He knew the end was coming after a particularly bad loss in Buffalo and after a weekend of waiting by the phone, his suspicion was confirmed when McPhee asked him to come by his home.

McPhee contends Boudreau’s four playoff teams in Washington suffered its share of bad luck and didn’t get the breaks Cup winners might get on their successful runs.

“It was an extremely difficult decision,” he said. “Probably the toughest ever personally. Because I didn’t’ feel like he deserved to be fired.”

Assistant coach Bob Woods, whom Boudreau brought to Anaheim, said his boss has done well at keeping himself and the players — including ex-Capital Mathieu Perreault — focused on each stop of their current trip.

“I think every guy in the room knows it’s a big game and for a lot of guys,” Woods said. “And I’m sure they’re going to give him their best effort.”

Ben Lovejoy calls Boudreau a smart coach and “an incredibly emotional guy” who could have trouble keeping them bottled up.

The game, the Ducks defenseman said, might be one he wants to win more than any other in this regular season.

“He established himself as an elite coach there,” Lovejoy said. “He had great success there. And things obviously didn’t end there the way he would have liked. I’m sure that he will try and play it cool with the guys in the room.

“But we know how special that moment’s going to be for him and how important that game is.”

Boudreau might try to play it cool, but really it is all a facade. It means everything even if he won’t say it and the competitor in him wants to leave victorious.

“I will say it was the first game I looked at on the schedule when it came out,” he said. “When do we play Washington? I’ve known where it is in the schedule.”

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